I don’t trust Dana Priest that much, and I am suspicious of some of possible motives behind the series, so with those caveats in mind, I still think the Post’s series (See here and here ) on what some of our wounded troops go through is must-reading. Hospitals for vets returning from the front should be palaces and the last thing in the world any of them deserve are bureaucratic hassles. Though I should say that I’ve visited wounded troops and from my very limited experience they are surrounded by people who really do care.
Still, here’s an idea for Fox News. Take Geraldo Rivera off the Anna Nicole beat and put him full time on this one. I’m not exactly a huge fan of Rivera’s but he launched his career exposing the scandalous condition of mental hospitals if I recall, and he has just the right amount of preening self-righteousness (see Hurrican Katrina) to scare the bejeebers out of the relevant bureaucrats and politicians.
Update: Glenn Greenwald over at Salon tries to mock me for saying I don’t trust Dana Priest that much. Typically he makes a Very Bid Deal about it. It’s all very boring, as is Greenwald 99% of the time in a Francis from Stripes kind of way.
As for Priest, I don’t think she lies or anything like that. But she has something of an agenda in my opinion. I’m hardly the first person to raise such a complaint. And it’s hardly as if Greenwald and his crowd don’t make exactly the same kind of complaint about reporters they have problems with. The difference is that I am still willing to concede that Priest’s reporting deserves to be read. Greenwald’s more of a scorched earth kind of guy.
Update II: From a reader:
“Glenn Greenwald over at Salon tries to mock me for saying I don’t trust Dana Priest that much.”
He’s not mocking you because you don’t trust Dana Priest. He’s mocking you because you apparently trust that beacon of journalistic responsibility, Geraldo Rivera, more.
A willful misreading, or just stupidity?
Me: Uh huh. Well, if that’s Greenwald’s point the question — willful misreading or just stupidity — should be aimed at Greenwald. It’s transparently obvious from what I wrote that my suggestion about Geraldo has to do with his gifts as a gadfly and a muckraker not as some Columbia J. School model of reportorial high-mindedness. The hints can be found in phrases like “not exactly a huge fan” and “preening self-righteousness” not to mention the reference to Hurrican Katrina whic, I’ve written more than once, was an enormous journalistic scandal for which figures like Rivera should ashamed.